In 1990, an article by S. Ryb'yakov about unusual events in the Roslavl district of the Smolensk region was published in the UFO newsletter. In the years since this publication, at least four expeditions have been there, and, judging by their results, anomalous phenomena are indeed observed in those places
In the villages of the Roslavl region, amazing events did not begin today. During the war years, for example, in the village of Khotkovo "night ghosts" appeared, which old-timers still remember. In the middle of the night, suddenly someone knocked on the window. The frightened inhabitants of the hut jumped up and saw outside the window one of the relatives who had gone to the front or to the partisans. After knocking, the night visitor disappeared …
And only later, when people learned about the death of their loved ones, who fought in the forests or on the front line, they realized a terrible truth. The dates of the appearance of the night visitors coincided with the dates of the death of their relatives. It turned out that those who died that day were knocking on the windows!
Old woman in white
And in the mid-1960s, the director of one of the local state farms met with the ghost. He hunted in the forest with a dog. It was getting dark. Suddenly the dog disappeared somewhere and did not respond to the cries of the owner. He began to look for her and suddenly came face to face with an old woman in a white robe. There was something in her appearance that made the hunter terrified. The old woman laughed, and the director froze, forgetting that he was holding a loaded double-barreled gun. Suddenly the vision split in two and then melted. The hunter stood still for at least an hour, unable to budge. He was brought to his senses by a dog that jumped out of the bushes. Whimpering, she began to rub about. his legs. The frightened man hurried to the village. Since then, he no longer went to the local forests and, as they say, gave up hunting altogether.
Uncleanness in foal form
A resident of the village of Zabolotye, Yegor Nikitich, a very elderly man, teetotal and not inclined to inventions, told about an amazing incident that happened to him.
Once he was riding a horse through a distant forest and got lost. He stopped in a clearing and began to look around. Suddenly a foal appeared from behind the trees. The horse, on which Yegor Nikitich was sitting, immediately started to move and unhurriedly followed the foal. And he went further and further into the forest.
At first, Yegor Nikitich thought that the foal would lead him to human habitation. And he kept walking and walking into the thicket. Seeing that the forest around was getting thicker, the old man cursed in his hearts and shouted:
- Hey, where are you taking me?
The foal turned to him and repeated, like an echo:
- Where are you taking me?
The old man almost got a blow. He quickly turned his horse around and, hiccuping with fear, galloped away from the "foal" who spoke, or rather, as he decided, from the evil spirits that took on such an appearance …
Terrible fellow traveler
In January 1970, two local tractor drivers met a ghost. Here is the story of one of them.
“At about two in the morning, my friend and I were driving a DT-75 caterpillar tractor. The tractor was brand new, we had just received it and were driving it to our village, so that in the morning it was already at our MTS. The path was not close - about seventy kilometers along the road covered with snow.
Frost crackled, but the weather was clear, the moon was full and it was quite light. In addition, the tractor's front and rear lights were on. Suddenly we heard a deep voice. It sounded distinctly, although we could not even hear ourselves behind the roar of the engine:
- Guys, give me a lift!
At first we did not see anyone, and only after driving another twenty meters, we noticed a dark-faced old woman. Despite the thirty-degree frost, she was without a headdress and dressed very lightly. She was wearing something like a loose white dress that went down to the snow. They riveted her eyes - green, unblinking, glowing like light bulbs.
We did not have time to catch our breath with amazement, as the old woman was already near the tractor. She moved strangely: she did not walk, but, as it were, floated over the snow, leaving no traces. Suddenly she grabbed the door handle, and at that moment all the lights at the tractor went out. Both the headlights and the rear limit lights went out. Fortunately, the engine continued to run. We drove at a speed of ten to twelve kilometers per hour, and with the same speed an old woman was "floating" nearby, and she managed to open the door.
- Let me in! - thundered throughout the cabin.
- Let me in!
We were seized with such horror that even now, after many years have passed, the frost cuts through our skin. I dropped the controls and grabbed the handle on the inside of the door with both hands. I struggled to close the door, but the old woman was stronger than me. Her hand reached out to me.
Then my friend came to his senses and began to help me, but the two of us could not close the door. The old woman possessed some kind of superhuman strength. When a friend guessed to insert a pry bar into the door handle. Using it as a lever, we closed the door and snapped the internal lock on it. The old woman fell silent, but continued to move next to the tractor and pull on the door. At the same time, she brought her face closer to the side glass and looked into the cockpit. I was literally centimeters away from her.
My friend and I were so terrified that we almost missed the turn. They were distracted for a moment, turning the tractor around, and when they looked out the side window again, the old woman was gone. At the same moment the headlights and taillights on the tractor flashed by themselves. We peered into the darkness outside the windows for a long time, but the old woman disappeared completely.
After that incident, we could not sleep peacefully for a whole month, until the morning loomed before our eyes a nightmarish image of a night stranger."
The funeral of a zombie
And here is a case dating back to the 1980s. The main witness of the incident, Zoya Petrovna Vlasyeva, told about it only twenty years later.
About four kilometers from her village, a relative, Antonida Mikhailovna, lived with her husband, a forester. When the forester died, Antonida refused to move from her secluded home to the village, although she was already in old age. There was a rumor about her that she knew how to conjure and remove damage, and people often came to her. In recent years, however, it has become less frequent. The strength must have ended in her. I couldn't do anything.
Shortly before her death, she got fat, walked a little, barely moved her swollen legs. Only Zoya Petrovna visited her.
One autumn, towards evening, Zoya Petrovna went to Antonida, as always, with food. She was lying on the bed. It was twilight in the hut, but Zoya Petrovna nevertheless saw that the old woman was all blue, she even went with some crimson spots. Zoya Petrova began to persuade her to go to the hospital, but she only shook her head. And then she said in a deaf voice:
- Zoya, I died.
The woman thought that the old woman had already begun hallucinations due to illness, but she repeated:
- I died. I don't need anything. Zoya Petrovna ran to the doctor's office.
We returned already together. They look - she turns and turns heavily. And in the hut there is a sweetish unpleasant smell. The doctor's wife told Zoya Petrovna in a whisper that she smelled like a corpse. I went up to the patient, tried to count the pulse, but did not find it. She lifted the shirt on the old woman, began to feel the stomach, and suddenly the skin burst under her hand, and worms crawled out from under it.
“It’s not necessary to treat me, but to bury me,” said Antonida. - Prepare the coffin!
The doctor's wife flew out of the hut like a bullet.
The next day Zoya Petrovna came with the villagers. The coffin was brought. Antonida was lying on the bed, all blue, her lips black and not breathing. It can be seen that she is dead. And in the hut there is such a strong smell that people pinched their noses with handkerchiefs.
It was decided to bury it without delay, until it completely rotted away. When they were putting the body in the coffin, Zoya Petrovna noticed - the eyes of the deceased opened slightly, looked around. Except for her, no one saw this. And she felt scared, but did not show her mind.
When Antonida was laid in a coffin and covered with a shroud, she stirred. They all gasped. They rushed out of the hut. Overcoming her fear, Zoya Petrovna remained by her side. She asked what was wrong with her. She opened her eyes, looked at her and said sternly, even angrily:
“Yes, I’ve died, I’m dead, can’t you see? Screw the lid back on, but tighter so that I don't get out!
They buried her then. Zoya Petrovna persuaded people to return and take the coffin to the cemetery. And what the deceased did move was, she said, she had a dream.